Sensing his presence, the monster screeched again while dashing toward Arthur. With his increased perception and agility, Arthur found it a lot slower than before. He avoided the monster with ease as he made his mana cover his sword.
A rock came flying like last time and Arthur slashed it easily because he was prepared. The monster jumped on him again with its scythes threateningly slashing at Arthur. He wanted to test his mana technique against this monster, so Arthur made a swing of his own.
The scythe and sword collided as mana sparked everywhere. Even though the hit was a bit on the heavy side, it was nothing Arthur couldn't take. After he parried the monster, he used the runes on his sword and the skill Poison Strike.
The poison found its target on the monster's face and it screeched in agony. However, that wasn't enough to stop its attacks. The monster began attacking again and again while Arthur deflected the strikes with his sword.
After a while, Arthur felt he could go on the offense. With another activation of his new protection rune, he dashed forward and began hacking at the monster's neck. The monster attacked his double protection rune but it was impossible to break through it. Arthur focused his mana on his blade as he struck with all of his strength, cutting the monster's neck. The monster rolled to the side and never got up.
Arthur felt the satisfying feeling of growing. Only two weeks ago, he couldn't kill this monster because of his lacking preparations. Now, he didn't even get hurt. He walked to the monster and absorbed its essence.
[Perception increased by 1.]
[Perception increased by 1.]
[Necessary types of essence have been absorbed. Skill gained: Earth Manipulation (E)]
Arthur was thrilled by the last line. Judging by the contents, it seems that he needed to absorb the three kinds of goblin ants to get this skill. Furthermore, it was an E-rank skill.
Arthur took the mana core and stashed it away. He then went toward the tunnel's wall and placed his hand. He urged his mana to follow the new 'link' he felt and the wall crumbled down in a one-meter diameter circle exactly as he imagined. The hardened structure of the compressed soil broke down by thought and hardened by another.
This overwhelming feeling thrilled him greatly. He hardened the soil he had grinned into fine dirt and made it condense into a rock. As he willed it, the rock began to circle him.
However, the mana drainage was huge. The whole experiment took almost half of his mana. After the earlier fight and mana usage, his current mana was almost empty. He decided to withhold this skill for now and replenish his mana.
After his earlier fight, Arthur began a killing spree of the underground monsters. He kept moving through the tunnels looking for prey but they kept getting less and less. After several hours, Arthur found a passage that went deeper underground. He went down while keeping his radar active, but soon turned tails and fled for his life.
Unexpectedly, the deeper tunnels had the life-forces of mid-tier monsters. Arthur had no way of currently killing them, so he had to go back for now. As he was walking back home, he mulled over his plans for the next couple of days.
Currently, he could hunt primitive monsters with ease. However, mid-level monsters were too powerful for him. He might be able to hunt one if he gave it his all, but he didn't want to risk it. He was a neo-ranker by The Union's standards at the moment. Neo-rankers weren't all of an equal power level, as some can only hunt primitive monsters and others could hunt mid-tier monsters. The general guideline stated that neo-rankers challenging anything above mid-tier were suicidal.
High-tier monsters and True Monsters were things only rei-rankers or parties full of them could hunt. That was the reason Arthur didn't want to hunt the Dark Queen as Solomon asked him since he would undoubtedly die.
If the Dark Queen was still recovering as Solomon said, then that would be Arthur's ticket to the outside. He had no hope of conquering the tower or hunting the High-tier monsters to get out. If he wanted to get out of here, then he needs to use the teleportation circle Solomon mentioned.
For this plan to succeed, he needs to get stronger as soon as possible. Furthermore, he needs allies. As he thought about this, he reached the pub to find Kira and the girl, the latter now awake, glaring at each other.
"Hi." Arthur walked over toward the girl who looked at him with wariness. "How are you feeling now?" He asked stopping a short distance away from her.
"…better." Her lips barely moved and she seemed like she wanted to say something else. Arthur felt like she was about to thank him, but he was wrong. "Why did you save me?" Was her first question.
"Uh…" Arthur didn't know what to say. Sometimes the most common concepts were the hardest to explain, but what was common and what was foolish was relative to each person. "I can't just let someone die if I can help them, right?"
The girl looked at him with even more wariness. Arthur scratched his neck due to his nervousness and decided to ignore her for now. He went into the pub and took out several skewers of food that he had prepared in the morning.
Sizzling sounds were soon heard with the aroma of meat drifting to their noses. Arthur used some seasoning he found in the pub and the meat smelled great. As he was barbequing the meat, he heard gulping sounds coming from behind him. He muffled a laugh and tried to act oblivious.
He placed the meat on some plates and handed them toward the girl. She looked at him for a short while before grabbing the food with both of her hands. She placed it in front of her as she let out a single sentence.
"Thank you."
Her voice was so weak that Arthur would have missed it if not for his highlighted perception. He smiled and nodded as he thought about something.
His stats were well rounded, with agility taking the lead. He took a bit from his meat as he realized that this was not common. Most people would focus on one aspect from themselves, one that suited or complemented their abilities. For Hazel's group leader, his strength seemed a lot stronger than his agility or perception. Although mana was a common stat because it was required for their abilities, other stats were not.
"What's your name?" His thoughts were interpreted by the girl next to him. Arthur was surprised that she took the initiative to talk to him, but he answered nonetheless.
"Arthur. What's yours?"
"Miko. Surname?" The girl asked while looking at him intently. Arthur realized her plate was already empty. As he looked at her, his eyes couldn't help but trace the huge scar on her face. He felt guilty because it seems that she noticed.
"Silvera…" He blurted out subconsciously. Miko didn't speak anymore and Arthur saw that she was looking at her plate. He grabbed another skewer and placed the meat on her plate.
"Arthur Silvera… It's a nice name." She said emotionless like she was talking to herself. "However, don't ever reveal your name to people you don't know. Not in here. That's stupid."
"Why is that?" Arthur's pride was hurt by being called stupid, but he couldn't refute her.
"Because people here fight each other, that's why you need to hide your identity. Did you tell anyone else?"
Arthur was getting warry by the amount of care she placed on this. However, he realized she was right. He knew no one here, and he shouldn't be telling his name so easily. What if Lian knew his name somehow, maybe Marco?
"Only two. One of them is a person I can trust." He said while thinking of Hazel. "The other is someone wearing the same robes as you."
"Okay, that's good." Hearing this, Miko nodded. Arthur thought this was the end of the conversation, but he was mistaken again. "Our family always told us to trust the silver."